"Deliberately Overlooking This Fact" Sermon: II Peter 3:1-7

“Deliberately Overlooking This Fact”
[II Peter 3:1-7]
July 27, 2008 Second Reformed Church

Today, we being the third chapter of Second Peter. In the first chapter, Peter encouraged Christians scattered throughout the known world to make their calling and election sure – to prove their salvation by doing the good works that Jesus called them to do. Although Salvation is by Jesus Alone, and the Christians were being hunted by the Roman army, Peter argued that people trying to kill us is not an excuse for not doing the good works that Jesus calls us to do.

He, then, tells them – and us – not to listen to the false teachers who were arguing that Jesus will not return and that Christians have the freedom to do whatever they want, but, instead, to fight against them with these two facts: first, there were hundreds of eye-witnesses, most of whom were still living, to the life and promises of Jesus, and second, that they should remember the prophecises of the Old Testament and note that every one that has come to pass has been accurate. No prophet of God every prophecied incorrectly, because the prophecies don’t come from the human mind, but from God.

In chapter two, he warned them that the false teachers are coming, but God will save the righteous and damn the false teachers. Peter denounces them as only wanting money, power, and physical pleasures and having teaching that is empty, hypocritical, and foul.

Now, in chapter three, Peter tells them that this is his second letter and he desires to stir up their minds – to right thought, action, and understanding – and he wants to remind them of some things, because we have a tendancy to forget.

He tells them to remember the prophets’ prophecies and the commandments of our Lord and Savior Jesus through the apostles. Begin by knowing what God has said through the prophets and the apostles. Know the prophecies. Know the promises. Know what has been fulfilled. Know what has yet to come.

Too many Christians say that they believe the Bible but don’t know what’s in it. Most of it is not too hard to read and understand. Most of it is not too hard to read and understand. And those things that are difficult, we can work through together. If you love Jesus, you’ll want to spend time in His Word, getting to know Him. We have studies on Saturday and Sunday, and I’ll say again, if those times don’t work for you, let me know when, and we’ll schedule it. If you can’t get to the church, maybe we could have a study at your home.

I pray that we will continue to know Jesus better and grow deeper in our faith and understanding. I desire the Lord to fill this sanctuary with people who come here for Him and desire to know Him as fully as possible – will you join me in that prayer? Let us learn the Word of God – not for my sake, not because it’s some magical formula for success, but because He is worthy and we want to be like Him and to be with Him.

And Peter tells all Christians that we ought to know the prophecies of the prophets and the commands of our Lord and Savior through the apostles because in the last days, scoffers will come – people who mock the Word of God. Just as they came in the first century, they come in the twenty-first century: “Jesus said He would return soon – and you still believe Him? Maybe in the days of the apostles, when it had only been thirty or forty years, but it’s been over two thousand years! Do you seriously believe that Jesus is going to return in the flesh? In the same way that He ascended? Everything has always remained the same forever, and it always will.”

The scoffers calls us fools, naive – you don’t want to be called a fool or naive, do you? How are you going to answer these challenges? What are we to say? Shall we agree, Jesus must have meant something else when He said He was going to return in the same Body in which He ascended? Shall we say that He may have only meant He would be spiritually with us?

Twenty-first century Christians have become ancient Greeks about the body: we pay lip-service to the body in The Apostle’s Creed, but we deny the goodness of the body and its resurrection. God said the body is good (Genesis 1). Now it has been corrupted and fails, but it will be raised, like Jesus’ Body was raised. It will be changed, perfected, and made an everlasting, yet a physical, body. We will have a body like Jesus’ Body – like the Body He is returning in.

But what does Peter say? “They deliberately overlook this fact.” Understand, the scoffers know that this fact is True – this fact that they overlook. There is no question in the text that they know the Truth. However, they don’t like the Truth – they don’t want the Truth to be True, so they deliberately overlook it. They force themselves to act – to scoff – as though they didn’t know the Truth. They have blinded themselves to what they know is True. What is this fact that they deliberately overlook? It has two parts:

First, they overlook that fact that the world was created out of the water by the Word of God. They know that the world was created out of the water by the Word of God, but they don’t like that Truth, so they force themselves to suppress it. But that does not change the fact: “And God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together in one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so, God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:9-10, ESV).

And David reminds us, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers” (Psalm 24:1, ESV).

Second, they overlook the fact that the world perished in the water by the same Word of God. Again, they know that the world perished in the water by the same Word of God, but they don’t like that Truth, so they force themselves to suppress it. But that does not change the fact: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in all the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of man was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. ... ‘For behold, I will bring a flood of waters to destroy all flesh which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die.’ ... The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. [That’s twenty-two and a half feet above the highest mountain]” (Genesis 6:5-8, 17, 7:20, ESV).

Since they purposefully suppress the Truth that they know is True – that God, by His Word, created the world out of the water and then, by His Word, caused the world to perish by water, they are able to scoff at the promise of Jesus’ Return – in the Body and as Judge.

But, just as God created the world through the water by His Word and then caused the world to perish in the water, by His Word – in the same way – God will speak and the heavens and the earth that now exist will be enveloped in fire, and judgment will rain down on the ungodly.

Paul wrote, “This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering – since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed” (II Thessalonians 1:5-10, ESV).

If we know the prophets and the apostles and do not suppress their clear message, we know that God, by His Word, created and destroyed the world once with water, so it makes perfectly good sense to understand that Jesus will come as Judge, and by His Word, destroy the heavens and the earth with fire.

We should not be afraid that Jesus is returning or that He is returning with fire to judge. And we need to be careful that we don’t hear these words and conclude, “Yes, all the physical world will be destroyed and we will just be spirit-beings living in Heaven.” We need to be careful, because that’s not what’s going to happen – that’s not what the Bible tells us.

I remember a time when I believed that the material world was going to be done away with and we would just all exist as spirit-beings in Heaven. Let me point out just one problem with thinking that: if we believe that, then how stupid is Jesus when He says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5, ESV). I used to think that was the stupidest thing – why would anyone want to inherit the earth, when it is going to be done away with – that just made no sense to me at all.

Here’s how we can solve the problem: Peter said that the history of Noah parallels the history of the judgement that will come when Jesus returns. We have seen it is a fact that God created the world out of the water by His Word. It is a fact that God destroyed the world with water by His Word. But that’s not the end It is also a fact that God restored the earth by His Word – He called on the waters to recede, and when it was safe, Noah and his family, and the animals came out of the ark, and God promised never to destroy the world again by water. “And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’” (Genesis 9:1, ESV). God restored the earth by giving them the word to repopulate, and the earth was restored.

When Jesus returns, with all the mighty angels, bringing judgment and fire, Jesus will throw death, Hell, and the devil into the lake of fire, the wicked will suffer eternally, but the chosen of God will pass through the fire, they will be purified, changed, perfected, the dross will be removed from our gold, as will that of the heavens and the earth. Paul wrote, “[The glory will revealed to us.] For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in the hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:19-23, ESV).

And John wrote, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God’” (Revelation 21:1-3, ESV).

If we know and do not suppress the Word of God, then our future is obvious to us: Jesus will return in His Resurrected Body, with fire, and He will call the fire down on the heavens and the earth to punish the wicked and purify His people. And then there will be a restoration – the earth and the heavens, and all the creation, and we who are God’s will be purified and perfected. And, according to the Word of God, we will inherit the earth. It will be like the Garden of Eden, only better, because, after the judgment, we will be unable to sin.

When the scoffers come and deny the judgment, let us point them to the Creation and to Noah and the judgment of water by God’s Word. Let us tell them that the judgment is coming, just like in the days of Noah, only this time it will be by fire. And let us not be dissuaded when they claim not to know the history of Noah, because it is history, and they do know it, they just don’t like it, or the God Who caused it.

So let us pray:
Almighty God, You Who only has to speak and all things obey You, we ask that God the Holy Spirit would stir up the fires within us and make us desire to know Your Word better. Help us to know it and understand it and remember it, so when the scoffers come, we can point them to Your Word and the Holy History You left us, with its glorious Promises. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.